More food, but less land and water for nature: why agricultural productivity gains did not materialize

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cg.contributor.affiliationWageningen Universityen_US
cg.contributor.affiliationInternational Rice Research Instituteen_US
cg.contributor.affiliationCornell Universityen_US
cg.contributor.affiliationInternational Water Management Instituteen_US
cg.contributor.affiliationInternational Institute for Applied System Analysisen_US
cg.creator.identifierAnton Urfels: 0000-0003-2920-8721en_US
cg.creator.identifierSimon Langan: 0000-0003-0742-3658en_US
cg.identifier.doihttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.agwat.2024.109229en_US
cg.identifier.iwmilibraryH053463en_US
cg.isijournalISI Journalen_US
cg.issn0378-3774en_US
cg.journalAgricultural Water Managementen_US
cg.reviewStatusPeer Reviewen_US
cg.volume307en_US
dc.contributor.authorSeijger, C.en_US
dc.contributor.authorUrfels, A.en_US
dc.contributor.authorChristoforidou, M.en_US
dc.contributor.authorHellegers, P.en_US
dc.contributor.authorBorghuis, G.en_US
dc.contributor.authorLangan, Simonen_US
dc.contributor.authorvan Halsema, G.en_US
dc.date.accessioned2025-01-29T00:15:30Zen_US
dc.date.available2025-01-29T00:15:30Zen_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10568/170281en_US
dc.titleMore food, but less land and water for nature: why agricultural productivity gains did not materializeen_US
dcterms.abstractRealism about productivity gains in agriculture and water is critical to understand if the world can feed itself while protecting nature. We use government-reported data to review progress over 2000–2020 compared to projections for irrigated and rainfed agriculture and trade. Our results over the period 2000–2020 show that productivity gains largely did not materialize. Instead of consolidating cereal production and trade in favourable regions like North America, Europe and Russia, their arable land declined by 35 million hectares, while arable land expanded by 74 million hectares in Africa, Latin America and Eastern Asia. Likewise, water productivity gains did not materialize, as photosynthesis breakthroughs did not occur. Land productivity (yield) gains were projected to rise 21–61 %, making the observed increase in cereal yields of 31 % a slight one. This puts the world on the path of using steadily more land and water to produce food and feed, at the expense of nature. Solutions to veer off this path include reducing food demand (including dietary change), stabilising rainfed agriculture and broadening the crop genetic resources base.en_US
dcterms.accessRightsOpen Accessen_US
dcterms.available2024-12-11en_US
dcterms.bibliographicCitationSeijger, C.; Urfels, A.; Christoforidou, M.; Hellegers, P.; Borghuis, G.; Langan, Simon; van Halsema, G. 2025. More food, but less land and water for nature: why agricultural productivity gains did not materialize. Agricultural Water Management, 307:109229. [doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agwat.2024.109229]en_US
dcterms.extent109229.en_US
dcterms.issued2025-02-01en_US
dcterms.languageenen_US
dcterms.licenseCC-BY-4.0en_US
dcterms.publisherElsevieren_US
dcterms.subjectagricultural productivityen_US
dcterms.subjectfood securityen_US
dcterms.subjectwater productivityen_US
dcterms.subjectland productivityen_US
dcterms.subjectwater accountingen_US
dcterms.subjectyield gapen_US
dcterms.subjectrainfed farmingen_US
dcterms.subjecttradeen_US
dcterms.typeJournal Articleen_US

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